Palazzo Coffee

Today we’d like to draw your attention to a small, independent coffee shop in Lower Wallingford: Palazzo Coffee. It’s a cute little place almost hidden among apartment buildings and small businesses, but well worth keeping an eye out for.

Palazzo serves drip coffee, espresso drinks, tortilla wraps, hot panini, other sandwiches, cookies, pasties, juice, sodas, etc. For the size of the place, I don’t know how they keep so many things on the menu – so many delicious things, that is – but they do. Palazzo is open M-F 6am-4pm (earlier if business is slow). Cash only, so come prepared for that!

Palazzo has been in it’s current location at 1906 N. 34th, across from Fisheries Supply, since 1995. That’s a long time! Hmmm. I wonder if Palazzo is the oldest currently-operating coffee shop in Wallingford? Could be!

The shop’s owner, Akbar Shirazi, used to have a coffee shop in Green Lake. He says Green Lake customers were pretty much the same from day to day, but in Wallingford he sees new faces all the time. Everybody’s different & things change regularly. When he first moved in, there was no Institute for Systems Biology down the street, no massage therapist next door. And he enjoys the constant flow of new faces from nearby construction and fishing crews.

I hadn’t thought of Lower Wallingford that way – fluid. But it is. What will Lower Wallingford look like next week? Or next month? A year from now? Who knows. But Akbar has a couple of wooden bar stools against the glass storefront where you can sip coffee, munch a pastry, and watch the neighborhood evolve.

And don’t forget to spend a few minutes chatting with Akbar. He’s one of the best sources of neighborhood news that you can tap into without an internet connection.

8 Comments

Palazzo is great! I used to work in the ‘hood, and we would visit Akbar a lot. Coffee and pastries are certainly good, but the sandwiches are some of the best around (I’m looking at you, Essential Bakery.) Palazzo is handy as well; how many independent coffee shops have their own parking?

If you stop by, ask Akbar if he is still using the “Walker, Texas Ranger” theme song as the ringtone on his cellphone. The guy’s a hoot.

25 year customer of Akbars – nothing like it anywhere – he even roasts his own coffee in the back…yum’ His special sandwiches are made with the best ingredients he can find – he even roasts his turkey daily…who does that any more. Pasties…ask him, he probably has a pair

This morning Akbar confirmed that yes, he still has the Walker Texas Ranger ring tone.

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This week’s editor is Ben Robinson. You can contact the editor-of-the-week at [email protected].

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